Crime and Financial problems for Playmon Park Apartments Block F

Crime and Financial problems for Playmon Park Apartments Block F

Crime and Financial problems for Playmon Park Apartments Block F

Debts of 800,000 euros and a lengthy legal process that will leave the residents of the building in an economic loophole with no way out, residents also ask for more measures to tackle crime and squatters.

Original source www.diarioinformacion.com – This story has been translated from Spanish to English so some information may be lost in translation.

The residents of Playmon Park, Block F describe it as “the four world”. Some floors of this building are now full of squatters with rising crime problems. This has been going on for some time and is a daily struggle for residents who wish to get their building back to normal or, at least, not have to face insults and threats every day. There is also a battle focused on the debts which have accumulated by the Community of Neighbors and is now a judicial battle between administrators etc.

Playmon Park was constructed back in the 70s at a cost of 450 million pesetas and was build as a luxury complex including an Olympic sized swimming pool and tennis courts. Block F, where all the problems are now concentrated, has 420 studios and apartments spread over 15 floors. out of these, some 130 homes are owned by banks, some of them with squatters inside; many are second residences; and the rest family owned or rented.

A few years ago, in the middle of the real estate bubble studios and small apartments were purchased at exorbitant prices. In 2004 a property of 43 square meters could be purchased for 121,000 euros, which left an average of 500 euros a month on a mortgage. Now, at most, 15,000 euros are paid but some can be found from 5,000 euros. In the first cases it is where, according to the residents, “the drama is born”, due to high mortgages that can no longer be paid, these properties are now in the hands of banks and do not face community expenses. But also, owners who have lost their homes and this is where the squatters now live and do not pay any fees.“There are people who prefer to rent the apartments at a very low price, about 150 euros, before someone enters to live in it without permission,”the neighbors explained. So there is now an endless number of defaulters.

Among the 420 apartments, there are a few who pay 700 euros a year for the community fees ; but taking into account that homes owned by banks who “do not do it” and there are owners who are now thousands of euros in debt, the defaulters have now accumulate a debt of 817,000 euros, the neighbors also state. “To this we must also add debts of the building with social security, with the Playmon residential to which they belong, water and electricity that they can barely cope with. And, as they explained, “we are in a dead end”

Because the community has been involved in a judicial process since 2014 to determine which administration is the one that has to take charge of its affairs and, therefore, put all economic issues in order. The problem is that the previous administrators “were denounced”, and according to the residents, it is those administrators who “did not pay bills and we do not know where the money is”. The problem is that the new administrators they have chosen can not take matters up until they have a judicial resolution. Therefore, “it is a whirlwind that bites the tail” because they can neither denounce the defaulters nor solve the debts.

Elevators have been left for more than a year without working properly, which some owners had to pay for in advance “We have an elevator for 420 homes for use of around 1,500 people. “It works seven times more than normal with an average of 42,000 trips a month, 1,400 a day, even above that of any skyscraper in Benidorm , “they said.

Urgent measures

A group of neighbors are trying to get block F out of these problems, for which they want “the judicial route to be clarified as soon as possible” in order to have an administration. But they have also done it to try to tackle the problem of squatters and crime by asking for more police presence or security in the area. Thus, they pointed out that they have counted on the collaboration of the National Police. But they also want to have surveillance cameras on the street. For this, they presented a proposal to the participatory budgets that was not finally accepted, according to the neighbors for an administrative matter together with the request of a Social Mediation center that will be done finally but in another way and for which the City Council already has started to acquire the plot right next to the building.